Anti-aging rides wave of sales from baby boomers

Skin care products, including facial moisturizers and facial anti-aging products, experienced an uptick in sales, and the growth is expected to continue going forward as baby boomers help fuel sales and shoppers indulge in small luxuries.

According to data from SymphonyIRI Group, sales of skin care — which includes acne treatments, body anti-aging, depilatories, facial anti-aging, facial cleansers and facial moisturizers and fade/bleach — rose nearly 2.5% to about $3.53 billion for the 52 weeks ended Dec. 2 at total U.S. multi-outlets.

Looking ahead, demand for skin care products — especially anti-aging — is expected to continue. “Baby boomers feel ‘young at heart,’ and they will also want to look young and healthy. Anti-aging is expected to see a 24% increase in constant value terms for 2011 to 2016, to reach U.S.$3.6 billion,” research firm Euromonitor International stated in a recent “Beauty and Personal Care in the U.S.” report.

Meanwhile, half of U.S. consumers are likely to make a small luxury purchase in the next six months, including 48% who are likely to purchase luxury personal care products, according to research findings released in November from Accenture. Among the findings, physical stores beat online shopping 2-to-1 for luxury personal care products: 44% of shoppers in this category prefer drug stores and 40% prefer department stores.

NEW YORK — Despite caution among consumers, retailers wrapped up 2012 with a healthy holiday shopping season, according to a new report by a retailing trade group.

The National Retail Federation said Tuesday that holiday retail sales increased 3% over the year before, to $579.8 billion. December retail sales increased 0.8% seasonally adjusted from November and 2.1% unadjusted year over year. Nevertheless, the 3% increase was still below the NRF’s projected 4.1% growth. Meanwhile, nonstore holiday sales grew 11.1%.

"For over six months, we’ve been saying that the fiscal cliff and economic uncertainty could impact holiday sales," NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay said. "As the number shows, these issues had a visible impact on consumer spending this holiday season. We can’t expect consumers to continue to carry the burden of growing our economy — Washington must put political differences aside and do what it takes to get our country growing again and Americans back to work."

But retail sales growth is "highly unsustainable" due to tax-related pressure on income, spending and weather-related issues in the next few months, Guggenheim Securities analyst John Heinbockel wrote.

"While nonstore retailers increased a hearty 11% this December, total December sales could not make up for shortfalls in certain categories like electronics," NRF chief economist Jack Kleinhenz said. "Heading into 2013, consumers could continue to think twice about their discretionary purchases as they face decreases in their paychecks and other concerns with their household budgets."

Lornamead owns and manages a portfolio of U.S., German and U.K. personal care brands — such as Finesse, Aqua Net, Yardley and Lypsyl — across hair, body, skin and oral care product categories. It has operating platforms in the United States, Germany and the U.K., and sells more than 20 brands in more than 60 countries to a variety of large retailers, including CVS and Walgreens in the United States; Rossmann and DM in Germany; and Boots, Tesco and Sainsbury in the U.K. Lornamead generated net sales of approximately $155 million in its financial year ended March 2012.

The transaction excluded cash on Lornamead balance sheet, the Yardley business outside the United States — which was sold by Lornamead in a separate transaction prior to this deal — as well as certain other operations that were retained by Lornamead shareholders.

“The acquisition of Lornamead will further expand our market share in the beauty business on a global basis,” stated Bruce Rockowitz, group president and CEO of Li & Fung Limited. “This is a very strong platform and will allow us to deepen our relationships with major retailers across all key markets and provide enormous cross-selling opportunities among our existing business networks. In addition, as we see increasing opportunities in the beauty business across Asia, this transaction will add a strong growth driver for LF Asia in the beauty and cosmetics arena.”

Beauty Vanities will put a spotlight on small, start-up brands by giving them ample opportunity to stand-out and get discovered at CPNA’s annual event, which is scheduled to take place July 29 to 31, in Las Vegas.

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